(a) Any person allowing or establishing commercial entry to a cave shall obtain from the board a permit to open the cave for public entry. The department shall charge a reasonable permit processing fee and adopt rules pursuant to chapter 91 necessary to carry out the purposes of this section.

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Terms Used In Hawaii Revised Statutes 6D-6

  • Board: means the board of land and natural resources. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 6D-1
  • Cave: means any naturally occurring void, cavity, recess, or system of interconnected passages large enough for human entry, occurring beneath the surface of the earth or within a cliff or ledge, including the cave resources therein, whether or not an entrance exists or is natural or artificial, and that is of archaeological, geological, biological, or cultural significance. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 6D-1
  • Commercial entry: means an activity undertaken to exhibit a cave for which compensation is received by any person for goods, services, or both, rendered to customers or participants in that use or activity. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 6D-1
  • county: includes the city and county of Honolulu. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 1-22
(b) Any person that receives compensation in conjunction with a use or activity and seeks to be excluded from the permit requirement under subsection (a) shall have the burden of establishing to the satisfaction of the department that its use or activity does not constitute a commercial entry under this chapter.
(c) Commercial entry to caves shall be limited to operations in place at the time of the passage of this Act; provided the operations are in compliance with all applicable state and county statutes, ordinances, and rules. No new operations may be established until the adoption of rules by the department to implement this section.
(d) Any person allowing commercial entry at the time of the passage of this Act shall file a declaration of the person’s use with the department within sixty days of the enactment of this Act. Existing operations, as recognized by the department through the declaration, within one year of the adoption of rules by the department, shall conform to the rules and all applicable state and county statutes, ordinances, and rules.